Chad Hanson is a glass half full kind of a guy when it comes to forest fires. Reflecting on Butler II Fire, he said, " This is an ecological treasure trove. It is not destroyed. "

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Chad Hanson, a forest conservationist and researcher, speaks about an area burned by the Butler II fire of 2007.

Chad Hanson, a forest conservationist and researcher, stands in an area that was burned by the Butler II fire of 2007. Eight years later, shrubs, wildflowers and little pine trees flourish beneath the blackened hulks of trees that died in the fire.

Chad Hanson walks through the tall shrubs on Wednesday, July 1 2015 in the San Bernardino National Forest. The area was burned from the Butler II Fire in 2007.

Signs of woodpeckers boring holes in trees in the area burned from the Butler II fire of 2007 are apparent on Wednesday, July 1 2015 in the San Bernardino National Forest.

Wildflowers and other vegetation grow in an area devastated by the Butler II fire of 2007.

Chad Hanson walks through the tall shrubs on Wednesday, July 1 2015 in the San Bernardino National Forest. The area was burned from the Butler II Fire in 2007.

Charred trees killed by the Butler II fire of 2007 still stand as new vegetation continues to grow eight years later on Wednesday, July 1 2015 in the San Bernardino National Forest.

Chad Hanson points to cavities that woodpeckers carved out of a pine tree killed by the Butler II Fire of 2007. He said the tree is an example of how fire actually creates new habitat for animals.

Chad Hanson points to a tiny Jeffery pine tree growing between shrubs, all of which have sprung to life in the years following the Butler II fire of 2007.

Chad Hanson argues that fires are good for the forest, providing habitat for woodpeckers and other animals.

In a place where seemingly there was no life in the wake of the Butler II Fire of 2007, a Jeffrey pine and wildflowers are growing eight years later.

A tiny Jeffrey pine rises beneath the charred remains of a once towering pine in the area devastated by the Butler II fire of 2007.

Charred trees killed by the Butler II fire of 2007 still stand as new vegetation continues to grow eight years later on Wednesday, July 1 2015 in the San Bernardino National Forest.

Chad Hanson tromped uphill through blue-green shrubs, over charcoal-black logs and around fire-red wildflowers. Then he stopped.

With tiny rivulets of water dripping off his nose and head in a light rain, Hanson issued a challenge: See any pine seedlings? Slowly, a pair of visitors craned necks and pointed to a 6-inch baby pine tree here, a 1-foot seedling there.

“We don’t need to be afraid of this,” he said, on a tour of a massive burn area near Big Bear Lake last week. “Walking through here, it’s certainly not the lifeless landscape that a lot of people presume.”

Walking a little farther, crossing a gully swollen with rainwater, Hanson paused at a knee-high Jeffrey pine. “My guess is this is going to be over the top of my head in four years,” he said.

It has been almost eight years since the 14,000-acre Butler 2 fire tore through a mature forest of Jeffrey pine, white fir, incense cedar and black oak near the community of Fawnskin with fierce intensity, consuming every living thing in its path.

Had one walked those footsteps in the aftermath of that fire, Hanson said, “all you’d have seen is ash on the ground. No shade. No conifer seedlings. No wildflowers.”

“But all you have to do is wait until the first spring after the fire and, all of the sudden, there’s this explosion of life and color,” he said.

The Butler 2 fire was recently cited by a UC Riverside scientist as an example of a particularly destructive blaze. And what happened there in September 2007 has implications for the more than 31,000 acres torched in recent weeks by the Lake fire several miles south of Big Bear.

Minnich, in a telephone interview, said the area near Fawnskin had previously burned in 1907 – a century earlier – and the Butler 2 fire ripped through it at high intensity.

“It was absolutely a disaster,” Minnich said.

For years, Minnich has been mapping wildfires of the San Bernardino National Forest and comparing them with fire patterns in the mountains south of the border in Baja California.

Hanson, director and ecologist for the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute, an environmental organization, has conducted several fire recovery studies since 2002.

He is a glass-half-full kind of guy who has a perspective that differs markedly from the views of Minnich, and of some national forest and fire officials.

While some routinely refer to trees and shrubs as fuels, he calls them habitat.

And as far as Hanson is concerned, there is no such thing as a bad forest fire.

‘A TREASURE TROVE’

As Hanson continued to stroll through the Butler 2 burn area, behind him a solid green carpet emerged, blanketing a north-facing mountain beneath rows of charred, matchstick-like hulks of once-towering trees.

On a sunny, south-facing slope, black oaks were roaring back to life from skeletons of burned trees – some had already reached 15 feet.

Sprawling across the ground were whitethorn shrubs mixed with wildflowers such as the orange Indian paintbrush and red penstemon. In shaded areas, lush plants that Hanson called thimbleberry were dressed in big green leaves and showy white flowers.

Hundreds of pine seedlings ranging from 6 inches to 3 feet tall were rising from the forest floor, often between shrub branches.

“This is an ecological treasure trove,” Hanson said. “It is not destroyed.”

Even the “snags,” or standing dead trees, are a treasure to Hanson. Pointing to holes in the bark, he said many were occupied by woodpeckers and other birds.

His ear picked up a sound from a few snags over.

“You hear that sharp, single squeaky note? That’s a hairy woodpecker,” Hanson said. “It sounds like a squeaky toy you would get for a dog.”

He rattled off a chain of reasons why the dead trees are good thing.

“Without dead trees you don’t have beetles. Without beetles you don’t have woodpeckers. Without woodpeckers you don’t have nest cavities. And without the nest cavities you don’t have bluebirds, nuthatches, chickadees and homes for even a lot of small mammals like squirrels,” he said.

THE ASPEN GROVE

Still, Minnich, the UCR scientist, isn’t ready to concede the Butler 2 fire was something less than mass destruction.

“Just because you have a few seedlings hanging around out there means nothing to me,” Minnich said. “You need to look in long-time scales. How is that place going to look 50 years from now? And how is the place going to look the next time a fire runs through there?”

Minnich suggested that because the fire wiped out entire stands of trees, the new ones that spring up – because they will all be the same size – will be more vulnerable to wildfire in the future.

Minnich and Hanson, however, agree on one thing: Fire is necessary for a healthy forest.

“We’ve got to have burning in this landscape,” Minnich said.

They also agree that one of the treasured features burned up in the Lake fire isn’t in danger of disappearing permanently from the landscape.

Minnich said he’s seen aspens bounce back again and again after fires in Baja California.

Hanson suggested the Lake fire could even serve to increase the grove’s foothold in the local forest.

“That aspen grove will flourish following the fire,” Hanson said. “And, generally, higher-intensity fire is what aspens in particular need to effectively reproduce and maintain and increase their presence on the landscape.”

In the absence of fire, he said, sun-loving aspens are gradually crowded out – and “shaded out” – by conifers.

And he said that was already beginning to occur in the San Bernardino National Forest.

Dave is a general assignment reporter based in Riverside, writing about a wide variety of topics ranging from drones and El Nino to trains and wildfires. He has worked for five newspapers in four states: Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona and California. He earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Colorado State University in 1981. Loves hiking, tennis, baseball, the beach, the Lakers and golden retrievers. He is from the Denver area.

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